My wife and I always look forward to our St. Paul neighborhood’s block party on National Night Out in August — and never more so than this year after the heartbreaking shooting of St. Paulite Philando Castile during a police traffic stop.

Philando worked at the J.J. Hill Montessori school, which is less than a block from my house, and less than two blocks from the section of street where our block party is always staged.

Because of the shooting, our neighborhood is continually erupting in antipolice protests. As I write this, another demonstration is about to start at J.J. Hill. The governor’s mansion, a site of sometimes-violent protests, is just a few blocks away.

It has been a trying time, which made our party all the more important. It was therapeutic.

I often refer to my house’s roomy front porch as my “third office” because I do a lot of work out there during Minnesota’s all-too-brief summers.

It seems criminal to hole up in my Pioneer Press cubicle, or in my home office, when I can do my work amidst fresh breezes, whispering trees, tweeting birdies and alluring odors from my wife’s nearby gardens.

For years, however, I couldn’t get my porch-workstation arrangement exactly right.